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Photo: 123RF Transpower is seeking feedback on a decision it says would establish New Zealand's electricity pathway for the next 40 years. The grid operator's acting executive general manager of grid development, Cobus Nel, said ageing submarine cables that cross Cook Strait needed to be replaced by the end of the decade. He said Transpower believed New Zealand should take this opportunity to increase the cables' capacity. The submarine cables form part of the high voltage direct current (HVDC) link that moves large amounts of electricity between the Benmore substation in the South Island and Haywards substation in the North Island. Neal said Transpower's analysis showed increasing the cables' capacity from the existing 1200 megawatts to 1400 megawatts while they were being replaced woul...

Photo: 123RF New Zealanders woke to headlines about sharemarket carnage overnight. The S&P 500 closed down 3 percent, the Nasdaq by about 3.4 percent, the Nikkei by a dramatic 12.4 percent, and even the ASX 3.7 percent - a A$100 billion "wipe out" of investor value. So what's caused this? There are a few factors that have combined to create the downturn that has stretched around the globe, including underwhelming earnings reports from listed companies, and softer US economic data. Earnings Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold said there had been a number of big global firms that had downgraded their earnings expectations in the past few weeks. Intel was a high-profile one, recording the biggest share price drop since 1974 last Friday after it reported softer revenue and significantl...

Bostock Brothers chicken farm in Hawkes Bay. Photo: Bostock Brothers The country's only organic chicken farm has been sold to industry giant Inghams. Hawkes Bay based Bostock Brothers were on the lookout for capital to grow the business but decided to sell the whole operation to major player Inghams. The company started a decade ago when Ben and George Bostock started raising chickens in the family's apple orchards. Ben Bostock said after ten years of developing the brand and growing business they couldn't keep up with demand. "Sales were doing really well, we were short on supply and we had more demand than we could keep up with but like all things especially recently to be sustainable you need scale, so we started looking for capital and it became on option to hand the batton over to ...

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Photo: AFP / Getty Images North America US share markets posted heavy losses on fears the American economy is headed for recession. When markets closed at 8am (NZT), the broader S&P 500 index fell 3 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2.6 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 3.4 percent. Earlier, the Nasdaq opened 6.3 percent lower, but clawed back some of the losses after data showed US services sector activity rebounding in July. On Monday Japan's Nikkei 225 closed down 12.4 percent, a blow to the world's fourth largest economy. The recession fears come after a US jobs report last week showed the world's biggest economy added significantly fewer jobs than analysts were expecting, at a time of high interes...

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Photo: AFP / Getty Images North America US stock markets tumbled on Monday following falls in Europe and Asia as fears rose that the American economy is heading for a slowdown. The S&P500 is steadily falling and before 7am NZT had dipped below the psychological 3 percent mark. The technology-heavy Nasdaq index opened 6.3 percent lower, before recovering some ground and then continuing its losses. Markets around the world have been facing furious selling and sharp falls on fears that the US economy is heading for a slowdown - and that many AI and tech stocks are overvalued. The global sell-off began on Friday after reports showed a weakening economy, then swept around the world. Last evening Japan's Nikkei 225 closed down 12.4 ...